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Breathing Permit of Hor" Thirty-Four Years Later

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Breathing Permit of Hor The "Breathing Permit of Hor" Thirty-four Years Later Robert K. Ritner IN 1967, THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus frag- ments once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for "The Book of Abraham." In January and February of the following year, sepia photographs of the fragments were published in the magazine The Im- provement Era, and on the basis of these photographs, the journal Dialogue commissioned translations and commentaries on the texts, now desig- nated as "The Joseph Smith Papyri." In the Summer issue of 1968, (vol. 8, no. 2) Egyptologists John A. Wilson and Richard A. Parker identified fragments within this collection as sections of a late mortuary text known as a "Book of Breathings," copied for a Theban priest named Hor.1 The first extensive translation of this document appeared in the sub- sequent autumn issue (vol. 8, no. 3), authored by my teacher and pre- decessor, Klaus Baer.2 Though Baer was ultimately able to examine the papyri personally, his study was conducted primarily from The Improve- ment Era photos and was considered by himself to be nothing more than a "preliminary study."3 Nevertheless, he was able to provide a complete translation of the surviving sections, including fragments pasted hap- hazardly as patches within the unrelated Papyrus IV and two vignettes that originally bracketed the main text: Papyrus I (originally redrawn as "A Facsimile From4 The Book of Abraham No. 1") and the now lost frag- ment redrawn as Facsimile No. 3 from The Book of Abraham. Baer's 1. Wilson 1968, 68-69 (document D) and Parker 1968a, 86 and 1968b, 98-99 (partial translation). 2. Baer 1968 (hereafter simply Baer). 3. Baer, 111. 4. The LDS authorized publication of these drawings as illustrations from The Book of Abraham clearly answers the polemicist Nibley's unjust complaint against his former tutor (1975, 1) that "There would have been nothing wrong with Dr. Baer's title if he had been 98 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought translation of "the Breathing Permit of Hor" has served as the basis of all further studies of the text, the most extensive of which was the 1975 edi- tion by Hugh Nibley. No full edition of this papyrus document has yet appeared. Baer provided only a translation annotated for a popular audi- ence, with phrases restored from parallel texts indicated by italic script.5 Nibley attempted a transliteration and literal interlinear translation only of the unrestored portions of Papyri XI and X (with the "patches"in Pa- pyrus IV).6 The corpus of parallel texts, on which any restorations must be based, has not been published as a group, though lists of such texts have been compiled and collective translations have appeared.7 In the absence of any formal edition of the Joseph Smith Book of Breathing combining full translation and transliteration, and with the re- cent publication by Charles M. Larson of vastly improved color pho- tographs,8 it seems proper to revisit the papyrus. As each generation of Chicago Egyptologists has dealt with the Mormon papyri (Breasted, Wil- son, Baer), it has now fallen to me to reassess Baer's translation in light of Egyptological advances of the past thirty-four years. In preparing the fol- lowing annotated edition, I have had access to Baer's original notebook9 and files, which have proved valuable for determining his restorations and readings. To prepare his translation, Baer hand-copied parallels from good enough to explain to his readers why it was apparent to him that his text is the source of the Book of Abraham." Baer did precisely that in footnote lll-12nll and on 126-33. This derivation had been discussed fully in Heward and Tanner 1968, to which Baer refers throughout his article. The Book of Abraham is published as being "translated from the pa- pyrus, by Joseph Smith," and as the facsimile is also "from" the Book, then the Book must have been derived (by whatever questionable means) from the papyrus. See also the explicit link between the text and facsimiles in Abraham, 1:6 (note c) and 1:12 and 14. Nibley's pro- fessed amazement (1) that anyone could derive an elaborate account from a few Egyptian signs is disingenuous, since just such "symbolic" translations had been done by the dis- credited Athanasius Kircher, whose work Nibley had previously described (1968a, 173-76). The work of Nibley and his acolytes is a professed attempt to counter the analysis of "peo- ple innocent of any bias in favor of Joseph Smith. .So now it is time to hear the other side of the story" (1968b, 105). 5. Baer, 119. 6. The word for word, incomplete translations in Nibley 1975 (hereafter simply Nib- ley) produce disjointed lines of the very sort criticized by Gee 1992, 105-06 regarding Lar- son 1992. Cf. Nibley, 19-20: "inside (of) the lake great (of) Chonsu born of Taykhebyt justi- fied likewise after clasped" with Larson 1992 as cited by Gee: "this pool great Khonsu born of Taykhebyt justified likewise after grasped." Nibley noted that his literal translation was "nonsense" (47). 7. A list of Books of Breathings appears in Vallogia 1979, 293, with fuller references in Coenen 1995. Translations appear in de Horrack 1907 and 1875 and in Goyon 1972. 8. Larson 1992, 33 (folded color plate). Contra Gee 1992, 93-94, these photographs are the first true four-color separation images of the papyri to be published. The difference in legibility is pronounced and inspires further respect for Baer's abilities with inferior mate- rials. 9. Oriental Institute Archives, Papers of Klaus Baer, file 2321.1 thank John A. Larson, Ritner: The "Breathing Permit of Hor" Thirty-four Years Later 99 a series of papyri: Hague 42/88 (P. Denon), Louvre 3284, Louvre 3291, British Museum 9995 and Berlin 3135, noting also minor variants in Louvre 3121, 3126, 3158 and 3166. Of these exemplars, Papyrus Louvre 3284 served as the representative "standard text," as it has for all transla- tions since its publication by de Horrack in 1877. The following translation also adopts this basis for restorations, with annotations indicating other variant readings. It must be stressed, however, that Baer's translation, like my own, presents the text as copied by the scribe of the Joseph Smith Pa- pyri (hereafter P JS). Other versions are employed only in restorations or annotations. As noted by Baer, the manuscripts show "relatively little vari- ation, so that it is not too dificult to restore the missing passages."10 As the reader will see, changes from Baer's understanding of the document are few and do not challenge his basic understanding of the text. The most notable changes entail matters of column numbering, dat- ing, and the interpretation of one title and a name. Column numbers in this edition have been increased by one, with the lines on P JS I now con- sidered sections within column I. Since the Breathing Document actually began at the end of P JS I, it has been necessary to revise Baer's number- ing to avoid beginning the text in column "0."11 In regard to dating, Baer, like Wilson and Parker, followed contemporary assessments based on the paleography of Books of Breathing and so dated the papyrus of Hor to the late Ptolemaic or early Roman Period.12 Recent studies by Quaege- beur and Coenen have suggested a date in the first half of the Ptolemaic Period (first half of the second century BC).13 This revision, based on the similarity of common family names and a rare title, remains controver- sial, though possible.14 The possibility of family connections between the owner of this Joseph Smith papyrus and individuals noted in compara- ble Louvre papyri was already a matter of discussion between Baer and Wilson in 1968.15 Among the titles of Hor listed in the first line of the surviving papyrus is an office of the fertility god, whose name Baer ren- Oriental institute Museum Archivist (and no relation to Charles M. Larson), for authoriza- tion and assistance with the Baer materials. 10. Baer, 119. 11. Already recognized by Baer in his notebook, and corresponding to the final two signs mentioned in Baer, 129 (line 5). 12. Baer, 111. 13. See Coenen 1998, and the references there cited. 14. No document securely establishes the genealogy proposed in Coenen 1998, 1110, and as noted by Quaegebeur 1994, 216, it is not clear if the relevant individuals are part of the same family. Coenen is perhaps overly confidant, 1110, that the problem of differing ti- tles for the Hor of P JS and the like-named man of certain Tubingen papyri "does not, how- ever, preclude the proposed identification." See also the remarks of Quirke 1999, 84-85. 15. Oriental Institute Baer file 2374 (letter of John Wilson, 7/2/68) and Baer file 2373 (response of 7/5/68). For another Hor son of Osorwer, see Quaegebeur 1994, 216-17. 100 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought dered as "Min, Bull-of-his-Mother/' employing the god's most common epithet.16 From Baer's notes, it is apparent that he was suspicious of this reading, and improved photography shows clearly that the divine name is rather "Min who slaughters his enemies." More problematic is the question of the interpretation of the name of Hor's mother, Taikhibit. Examples of the name had previously been gathered by de Meulenaere, whose transliteration T'(y)-by-bi'.t and translation "The one who is joyous" (literally, "high of character") have been universally adopted in reference works and articles.17 Writings of the name vary within the Breathing Document, from spellings consistent A A A ft , /g) ft fs <» with de Meulenaere's examples (%^Y P L / O>$$$1 Col.
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